CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? The death toll has risen to 61 following fierce gunbattles between inmates and National Guard troops at a Venezuelan prison, a hospital director said Saturday. Penitentiary Service Minister Iris Varela said Saturday that officials had begun evacuating inmates from the Uribana prison in Barquisimeto and transferring them to other facilities, but she did not provide an official death toll. The riot was the latest in a series of deadly clashes in Venezuela's overcrowded and often anarchical prisons, where inmates typically obtain weapons and drugs with the help of corrupt guards. Critics called it proof that the government is failing to get a grip on a worsening national crisis in its penitentiaries. Varela did not provide any estimates of the numbers killed and injured, and instead criticized Venezuelan news media at length for their coverage of the violence. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles condemned the government's handling of what he and many other critics call a growing crisis in the country's prisons. The Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, a watchdog group, said in a statement that in 2007 the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights had ordered the government to seize weapons that inmates had in their possession at Uribana prison and to take measures to avoid deaths in the facility. "No one doubts that inspections are necessary procedures to guarantee prison conditions in line with international standards, but they can't be carried out with the warlike attitude as (authorities) have done it," said Humberto Prado, an activist who leads the prison watchdog group. Chavez's government previously pledged improvements to the prison system, but opponents and activists say the government hasn't made progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment